LG OLED C6H (TANDEM OLED) vs Samsung M80H

And it is with HDR that the Tandem OLED panel shows its greatest advantage. The C6H’s brightness is simply very high and in our measurements it hovered around 1900–2300 nits in most film scenes. That’s already a level at which bright highlights, the sun or small light sources can look truly spectacular. The biggest impression, however, was made by the fifth scene from the film The Meg. It is exceptionally demanding for OLEDs because almost the entire screen is very bright. Even so, the C6H reached about 1650 nits in that scene. By comparison, the regular C6 with a classic WOLED panel recorded around 600–700 nits at the same point. So we’re talking about more than double the brightness, and in places the difference even approaches three times. And that is probably the best example of what Tandem OLED delivers here. It’s not just a higher result on a small test patch. The C6H can maintain very high brightness even when much more of the screen is lit. As a result HDR has significantly greater dynamism, and in this respect the C6H is much closer to flagship OLEDs than to typical mid-range models.

Colours

Tandem OLED also brings an improvement in colours. DCI-P3 coverage remains practically complete at about 99%, while in the much wider BT.2020 colour space we measured around 82–83%. That’s roughly seven percentage points more than the regular C6. In everyday use this won’t be a difference visible in every scene, because most films do not use such a wide gamut. However, when very highly saturated colours appear, the C6H already has noticeably greater capability, especially in reds. Reds benefit the most, becoming deeper and more saturated. This still isn’t at the level of the best QD-OLED panels or SQD TVs, but for a WOLED panel the performance is really very good.

The M80H is not among the brightest TVs. Its peak brightness is around 350 nits and we saw similar results in most of our test scenes. That is not enough to achieve truly striking HDR; bright highlights lack the necessary punch and the overall image is a bit too dark. In practice HDR on the M80H resembles a well-presented SDR image more than noticeably more dynamic material with a wide brightness range. The image can still look acceptable, but it is hard to speak of strong specular highlights, clearly glowing light sources or an effect that immediately distinguishes HDR from ordinary content.

Colours

One of the M80H's stronger points is its colours. The TV uses a filter based on PFS backlighting, which allows it to display a much wider colour gamut than a standard LCD screen without filters. Our measurements confirm this – the M80H covers around 96% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 72% of BT.2020. Those are really good figures, which allow colours to be deeply saturated. Samsung's approach here is interesting. The M80H is not part of the QLED family, even though in terms of colour it is practically indistinguishable from models carrying that badge. From an image-quality point of view it doesn't really matter though — the colours are simply good.

Straight out of the box the LG C6 is fairly well set up, especially if you select the Filmmaker mode. In SDR content the white balance is decent, although as brightness increases it shows a slight deficiency in red. The image therefore becomes a little cooler, but not enough for the difference to be very noticeable during normal viewing. More is happening in the brightness response. Gamma is a bit low and, instead of holding at 2.4, it sits closer to 2.1–2.2 across much of the range. In practice the C6 slightly brightens midtones. Shadow detail is therefore more readable, but the picture loses some depth compared with how it should look in a darkened room.

In HDR the situation is a bit more interesting. The lower end of the greyscale performs very well, but from roughly 20–30% brightness the white balance starts to drift increasingly. As brightness rises there is more red, while blue becomes noticeably deficient. In the brightest scenes the difference is already substantial and also affects the reproduction of some colours. The EOTF itself is, however, fairly well tracked across most of the range. The C6 merely tends to slightly brighten the image, which we already saw in our film comparisons. The largest deviation appears in the very brightest areas, where the TV begins to adapt the signal to the panel’s capabilities.

The factory Filmmaker setting in HDR is therefore not perfect, but overall it performs well. The biggest room for improvement is the white balance, particularly at high brightness.

Filmmaker Mode is set fairly well out of the box, although it falls short of perfection. In SDR material the most noticeable issue is an excess of red in the white balance, which makes the image appear a little warmer than it should. HDR content has a similar character. As for the brightness response, in SDR the gamma stays close to the target value for most of the range. Small deviations are mainly visible in darker areas, which in places are a bit too crushed. In HDR the darkest details are slightly lifted, while from around 65% brightness the image begins to be slightly darkened. This is largely due to the way the TV controls its brightness. Overall, Filmmaker Mode looks pretty good straight out of the box, but the picture can still be improved.

LG TVs have long been very receptive to calibration and the C6 is no exception. After adjustment the white balance could be set almost perfectly, and most colour errors fell below 3, often even down to around 2. In practice this means very accurate colour reproduction in both SDR and HDR. An interesting detail only emerged when we looked at the HDR luminance response. On a classic EOTF plot everything looks almost ideal and at first glance it would be hard to find fault. Only when we measured the TV's behaviour on filters based on real film scenes did it become apparent that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

It is not a huge difference and many people may even welcome it because HDR looks a bit more striking as a result. From the point of view of fidelity to the source material this is not ideal behaviour though – some scenes are simply a touch brighter than the filmmaker intended. Interestingly, this is rather unusual for LG. In previous generations the brand's TVs typically stuck closely to the reference picture characteristic after calibration. With the C6 we are still very close to the standard, but this subtle brightness 'boost' can indeed be noticed in films and series.

After calibration, the M80H fares very well, especially with the most ordinary SDR content. Regular broadcast TV, YouTube and films watched without HDR can look very good on it. After correcting the white balance the errors are small, although sometimes we can still see that the TV tends to overdo the most saturated reds. In HDR it is also possible to improve the picture and correct its main faults, but it is not at the level of pricier models. Samsung quite heavily restricts colour adjustment in HDR, so in many areas we have to accept what the TV offers out of the box. Calibration lets us improve some parameters, but we are no longer able to change the overall character of the M80H's image.

Here the LG C6 has taken a really big step forward. The TV uses the same processor found in the flagship G6, and in terms of image processing the two models are very similar. That's a considerable plus, because this year's LG processor excels in that area. The "Smooth Gradation" function works particularly well. With heavily compressed footage it can effectively hide ugly banding and artefacts that often occur, for instance in lower-quality streaming. It's best to leave it on the "Low" setting. Then the improvement is noticeable, while the TV does not yet start to blur fine detail. Higher levels smooth the picture more, but can already remove some of the natural texture of objects on screen. Upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution material is sharpened correctly, edges look clean, and the processor quite effectively reconstructs fine detail. In this respect the C6 is already very close to LG's best TVs and the differences compared with the G6 are small.

Although the M80H is positioned fairly low in Samsung's range, the manufacturer equipped it with one of its stronger processors, the NQ4 AI Gen2. The same chip can be found, for example, in Neo QLED TVs and the lower-tier S85H OLED. That is good news, because when it comes to improving weaker sources the processor performs really well. Upscaling is the strongest point. Low-resolution content is displayed correctly and edges do not look overly jagged. Of course the TV will not create details that are not present in the source, but regular broadcast TV and older recordings look decent on it. One drawback is the overscan effect, that is edge cropping, which cannot be completely turned off. The tonal transition smoothing function, the so-called noise reduction, also works well. The processor can effectively reduce visible traces of heavy compression, but it does not do this without side effects. At higher settings it may over-smooth the image, remove some fine detail and even eliminate film grain. For that reason we recommend using this function mainly for content that really suffers from strong compression and posterisation.

The C6H with a Tandem OLED panel can also operate at refresh rates of up to 165 Hz. PC gamers will naturally get the most out of this, because for consoles, films or sport we're still looking at a maximum of 120 Hz. The panel itself is excellent when it comes to motion. OLED pixels respond virtually instantly, so even with fast-moving objects you don't see the typical motion blur. The picture remains clean whether you're watching sport or playing fast-paced games.

If you prioritise smoothness over motion clarity, TruMotion is available. LG lets you adjust two parameters separately. De-Judder mainly works with films and series shot at 24 fps and helps reduce the judder that's characteristic of them. De-Blur, meanwhile, is intended for 50/60 fps content, so it's particularly useful when watching sport or television.

The M80H performs very well for watching sport and for gaming. The TV is fitted with a panel offering a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz at 4K, and when the resolution is lowered to Full HD it can even support 240 Hz. PC gamers will benefit most from the latter.

The panel also handles content displayed at 120 Hz well, which is particularly important for console gaming. The high refresh rate is also useful when watching sport, and motion blur is relatively limited. That matters because VA panels are not known for top results in this area. With the M80H, fast-moving objects do not show pronounced smearing.

The C6H offers practically the full suite of gaming features. On consoles you can easily use 4K at 120 Hz, while PC users can push the refresh rate up to 165 Hz. The TV also supports VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM and a proper implementation of HGiG. Dolby Vision is also available in game mode, which remains a major advantage for Xbox owners. All key information can be viewed in the Game Bar, which provides quick access to VRR settings and the current signal’s parameters. The OLED implementation therefore does not alter the feature set available to gamers, but with such high panel brightness HDR games can make an even stronger impression. Functionally, the C6H is simply a very complete TV for console and PC gaming.

The M80H could be a very good choice for gamers on a slightly smaller budget. In terms of features it offers essentially the same as far more expensive Samsung TVs. All three HDMI ports support the 2.1 standard, so even if one is taken by a soundbar connected via eARC there is still room for a PC and consoles. There is also VRR that runs up to 144 Hz at 4K and up to 240 Hz at Full HD. Samsung has also correctly implemented HGiG, so after performing HDR calibration on a console games are properly matched to the screen’s capabilities. This won't make the M80H any brighter, but at least it won't unnecessarily crush the brightest parts of the image. There's also a Game Bar for quick access to key settings and a Gaming Hub that lets you play in the cloud without a console. The M80H also offers Game Motion Plus, which creates additional frames and improves the smoothness of games running at 30 or 60 fps. Input lag then rises to around 59 ms, but is still roughly three times lower than with ordinary motion smoothing on TVs from other manufacturers. We wouldn't really recommend it for online gaming, but in more relaxed titles it can perform very well.